


ficpocalypse part deux

by TheElusiveOllie



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Gen, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 00:48:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 5,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17012352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheElusiveOllie/pseuds/TheElusiveOllie
Summary: A series of works I wrote on my tumblr, now being relocated for safekeeping. Most of this is pretty old, and largely uncategorized drabbles from the second, short-lived "ficpocalypse" I once hosted.





	1. how to get kicked out of walgreens; brian and tim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The prompt: Why does Brian get kicked out of Walgreens?
> 
> My response: Brian is such a sweet muffin that it almost feels hard to visualize until you take into account who he’s buddies with. Pre-series Brian - I’m assuming this is to whom you are referring because after certain events murky to the timeline, he becomes the fractured troll fond of cryptic messages that we all know and love and mourn - well. Pre-series Brian could be pushed to it.

Here’s how it happens.

Tim can handle himself in a Walgreens. It requires the bare minimum of social interaction but he’s got that, he knows how to make that work. Even if he grumps and glares from beneath lowered brows as he hands in his prescription and asks if they’ve got it available and hunches his shoulders and crams his hands in his pockets and tries to look small and doesn’t truly succeed - he’s got this. Brian knows that. And it’s only, what, 10 pm and they’re having one of those nights that’s just rough on Tim, you know? Well, actually, Brian doesn’t know. Whatever Tim’s deal is, he doesn’t really talk about it. But sometimes he ends up on his best friend’s doorstep with no words and a desperate, vaguely terrified glint in his eye and Brian just steps aside and lets Tim in, no questions asked. It’s one of those nights, except Brian gets the idea that, _hey_. Let’s hit up Walgreens. I know you can’t drink, bud, but let’s do it. Pick up some skittles. Find a cheap B-movie. It’s 10 pm. We’re neither of us planning to sleep, so might as well make the best of it. Let’s do this.

Tim goes with him. He’s been subdued practically the entire night, even for him - Tim never uses ten words where he can use two, keeps whatever he says short and curt and that works out just fine. Brian doesn’t ask for him to be anything other than what he is, and what he is is a damn good friend with a determined edge hidden in the perpetually defeated slope of his shoulders, and a firm sense of loyalty toward the only buddy he’s got. But tonight? Well, tonight Tim seems even more locked down into himself than usual.

That’s okay, Brian thinks. Duck in for some skittles and a movie, duck out. It’ll be real quick.

They’re just ringing their goodies up when the cashier, some scruffy slip of a guy in his twenties, peers at Tim and huffs, half-derisive and half-amused.

“Hey,” he says. “I remember you. You’re that kid with the psycho problems, right?” He spins a hand in a loose circle next to his head, in the universal indication of crazy. He stutters a disbelieving laugh, still looking at Tim like he’s a novelty item, while Tim is looking more and more like he wants to shrivel into nothing so no one will speak to him again. “Th’fuck was in those meds, dude?”

Brian goes quiet, and looks at the guy with a hard bite in his glare.

Two and a half minutes later, Brian is nursing the swelling purplish bruises cresting his knuckles and a freshly instigated ban from Walgreens, and Tim is staring at him like he doesn’t know whether to be admonishing or impressed.

Tim shakes his head and glances away and grunts something that approximates, “you goddamn moron.”

Brian grins.


	2. late nights with jay merrick; alex and jay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I believe the prompt here was "Alex/Jay celebrity/fan au," which only explains part of why this exists.

_The following is a transcript from Late Nights With Jay Merrick_

MERRICK  
Hello and good evening, everyone. Tonight we have with us a very special guest - Alex Kralie, director of the critically acclaimed and Oscar-nominated major motion picture, Marble Hornets. How are you tonight, Mr. Kralie?

KRALIE  
Happy to be here, Jay, let me tell you.

MERRICK  
Some critics are calling Marble Hornets a “sleeper hit.” Audiences all over are flocking to see this film which, as I understand, started out as a very independent, very low-budget feature.

KRALIE  
That’s correct, yes. I know we never would have expected it to become as big as it is now.

MERRICK  
Why do you think that is? I mean, why do you think this picture has just resonated with so many people?

KRALIE  
Well, I think at its core, it’s just a really relatable story with a really relatable set of characters. You know, I’m pretty sure we’ve all felt the way Brian’s felt, I’m sure we’ve all felt directionless and, and alone and we’ve had those moments where we just don’t know where we want to go in life. And Marble Hornets really is a story about finding yourself again, about finding your direction, maybe even finding a little lost love, you know? It’s just got this really powerful theme of finding hope in a dark place.

MERRICK  
Couldn’t agree more. What do you say we watch a clip?

KRALIE  
Absolutely.

_[clip runs]_

_[clip ends, audience clapping]_

MERRICK  
So, let’s see here. If I’m reading this right - you actually started out in television, is that correct?

KRALIE  
_[laughing]_ Yes, you’d be right about that. I actually worked in syndication for a while first until I got actively involved in my own projects. And eventually I’d get very deeply involved in the film industry, and, well…

MERRICK  
Well, your first big critical and commercial success was the Nature Break series, right?

KRALIE  
_[laughing]_ Yeah, yeah, that was it. Nature Break. Man. Never would have expected that.

MERRICK  
Well, the network didn’t expect it to get so popular either. Yet it racked up a huge viewer count, made you almost a household name in Alabama.

KRALIE  
It was really unexpected, yeah. And it’s still so, so humbling and incredible to keep hearing about all these kids who got to learn about nature with Mr. Digsby, you know? Like, years later, I’m still getting letters and I’m still getting recognition for that. I know a huge part of Marble Hornets’ success was the very devoted Nature Break fanbase and it’s just really, very incredible to watch.

MERRICK  
I imagine it must be, yes. Well, Mr. Kralie, it was an absolute joy having you here with us tonight.

KRALIE  
It was my pleasure, Jay.

_[cue music, fade out]_


	3. wright back atcha; alex and tim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the prompt: **lab partners au alex and tim "bc of all the sassing" -tiger**

“You don’t add the sodium chloride first. You add it _last.”_

"Okay, first of all, it’s table salt. Sodium chloride is literally table salt. Don’t be pretentious. Second of all, this is my half of the lab, not yours. Quit backseat lab partner-ing.”

"I’m _not._ I’m just pointing out that - okay, I’m pretty sure that’s not supposed to be burning like that.”

"For fuck’s - let me deal with it, Alex. You’ve still got, like, five of those magnesium thingies to sample.”

"Were you paying attention at all when I wrote the directions? Like, at _all?”_

"Worry about your own station, willya?”

“I _will_ when you stop fucking _yours_ up!”

"I wasn’t fucking anything up until you came along and - put the Bunsen burner _down.”_

"I need it!”

“Wait until I’m _done,_ then. Or _ask.”_

"Fine, fine. You’re not using this Erlenmeyer, are you?”

“Alex, _don’t - “_

After a brief flurry of limbs, there is the distinct smashing and tinkling sound of breaking glass.

Then silence.

"That was your fault.”

“Um, what? Sorry, no, that was all you.”

“If you’d just listened to me in the _first_ place - “

"Oh, no way do you get to put this on me! You were the on who just fucking _grabbed_ at it, and now we’ll both get F’s - “

 _"Please._ ‘I’m Tim, I’m going to hoard all the lab supplies and ignore my partner and do everything wrong’.”

"I don’t sound like that.”

"You totally do. And this is still your fault.”

“Fuck you, Kralie.”

“Wright back atcha.”

“…just for that, I’m gonna punch you.”


	4. (probably) a practical joke; alex and jay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the prompt: **handcuffed together au with Alex and Jay**

Alex Kralie is not having a good day.

His wrists are starting to hurt.

Jay shifts, shoulder blades digging painfully into Alex’s lower back, causing him to yelp in pain.

“God _damnit,_ Jay.” he snaps. “Stop _doing_ that.”

“I’m just trying to get comfortable!” the other man fires back, neck strained awkwardly over one shoulder. “As comfortable as I can in this position, anyway.”

Alex resists the urge to roll his eyes, remembers Jay can’t actually see him rolling his eyes, and promptly gives in to the urge.

“And _you,”_ Jay says, blatantly annoyed. “Can stop doing _that.”_

“Stop doing what?”

“You rolled your eyes at me.”

“Didn’t.”

“Did.”

“How can you even tell?”

“You make this little snorting noise with your nose whenever you do it.”

“For fuck’s sake, Jay.”

“Sorry.”

The two men fall silent.

They cannot for the life of them recall how they got into this situation.

Shooting a student film shouldn’t have in any way involved an apparently abandoned shack in the middle of the woods, four missing hours (75% of which could probably be ascribed to the two six-packs Brian somehow thought was a good idea to bring along), and, most perplexingly, a pair of what was most assuredly police standard-issue handcuffs.

If Alex ever gets out of this, he thinks venomously, he is going to _strangle_ Brian. Doubtless this is his idea of a playful joke between friends.

Granted, he probably hadn’t exactly been sober himself when he dreamed this up.

That does not make this in any way forgivable.

“Oh, hey!” Jay’s voice has brightened up considerably. “Look!”

Alex tenses his neck to do just that before remembering.

“Jay,” he growls. “I can’t look. I am facing the _other way.”_

“Right, right.” The other man’s excitement has not dimmed. Alex cannot decide if this is endearing or annoying. Or both.

Probably both.

“So?” Alex demands after a far-too-lengthy silence. “What?”

“The camera,” Jay jerks his head, leaving Alex with the unpleasant sensation that he may have just had his spine dislocated. “Over there. Maybe I can get to it and turn it on and - ”

“And what?” Alex abruptly arches his back to prevent Jay from doing any such thing.

“Alex, what’re you - ow!”

“Jay, I _do not want_ a video of us handcuffed together showing up _on the Internet.”_

Jay falls silent.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Silence.

“Do you wanna try and reach my phone again?”

The last attempt involved far too much jostling and hissing in pain and fingers going in places that Alex would frankly rather not discuss in any great detail.

Alex sighs.

“Sure.”


	5. the garlic is an overkill; jay and tim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the prompt: **mh vampire au**
> 
> my response: **i hope you weren’t hoping for something serious. maybe this is like a ctc present or something i don’t know**

“Okay, so now I feel like I’m not being taken seriously.”

Tim eyes the camera dubiously, but perhaps not half as dubiously as he does its owner, thoroughly armed as he is. Armed to the teeth, as it were. And, oh, if only that were figurative.

“The garlic? Not necessary. I said I had a lid on it.”

“Nothing wrong in _safety precautions,”_ Jay says stubbornly. Tim notes that he might look a good deal more threatening if he hadn’t looped the strand of garlic around his neck like some bizarre necklace and then simply left it dangling there.

And that’s not even getting started on his walking armory of crosses, stakes, silver knives ( _“I told you,”_ Tim hissed between clenched teeth, “that’s for _werewolves_ , not _vampires”_ ), and the impressive array of matches and lighters he doubtless has stowed all over his person.

He looks ridiculous.

“There’s a line between kill and overkill.” Tim arches an eyebrow at the blocky wooden cross of questionable quality Jay has also elected to wear around his neck. “I think you just strangled yourself with it.”

Jay glares.

People tend to underestimate the power of a good, solid glare. The little side effect of vampiric immortality means that Tim has seen so many more good, solid glares than he ever could have wanted to, and he’s got to say that Jay’s places at least in the Top Ten. Maybe even the Top Five.

The number one slot, however, is reserved for tonight’s target.

“Is the camera going to actually do anything, anyway?” Tim continues, ignoring Jay’s persisting glower. “I’ve told you about the mirror thing, right?”

“This camera,” Jay says with no small measure of pride. “is digital. And therefore has no mirrors.”

He sounds incredibly pleased with himself. Tim nods, his face carefully blank.

“Mhm.”

Pause.

“Are you making fun of me?”

“What? No. ‘Course not.”

“You are!”

Tim sighs.

“You _are.”_

Tim does not say anything.

Jay huffs, plainly annoyed.

“Come on,” he grunts, pushing past other man. Not-man. Tim isn’t really a “man” in the strictest sense of the term.

Tim is getting distracted.

He follows, still doing his damnedest to bite back a smirk.


	6. coasters; jay and tim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the prompt: **Jam pre-slash, bartender AU**
> 
> the response: **tw for alcohol mention and some depressive mindsets**

Someone keeps leaving notes beneath the coasters. 

_Jay’s_ coasters.

It’s consistent, too. Bars aren’t the best hang-arounds for college students, granted, but it’s not like Jay goes every day. Not every week, even. And definitely not because his life is more or less in shambles and he’s not even really used to the four-year-old feelings of directionlessness and disconnect that have haunted him since he left home.

(Probably before, come to think of it.)

But anyway.

Coasters.

He’s still not quite sure how the note-leaver manages to pull it off. Jay doesn’t usually leave his quiet out-of-the-way little spot. He comes in, hunches himself up in the most dismal, lonely corner he can find, finishes his drink, and leaves.

So the person leaving the notes has to be a _regular._ How else would they be able to predict Jay’s favored spot at the counter and then leave _notes?_

They’re not even really _note_ notes. Just little scribbles on the back of old receipts, reading something along the lines of _“this one’s on me.”_ Sometimes Jay takes them up on it, but the sheer overwhelming perplexity of someone… _approaching_ Jay (willingly!) usually has him throwing his own bills on the counter as he leaves. 

Which, in hindsight, is really fucking stupid because he’s working one of those minimum wage coffee shop jobs and yes, it’s all very cliché, right down to the moments of dreary sameness when he enters his tiny college-wage apartment and sleeps for a handful of hours on his lumpy college-wage bed and wakes up at four in the morning to kill time before returning to his shitty college-wage job.

It’s really quite the life.

But the notes signify a change, and Jay pounces on it. The isolating _sameness_ of it all has begun to grind at him, and there’s nothing he loves more than mysteries. The notes under the coasters are even better than the cheap spy thrillers he’ll stay up watching when the nightmares get too much and the sleeplessness too grim, because they’re _real._ They’re _happening._ To _him._

It takes a few weeks for Jay to narrow down the suspects. He finds himself returning to the bar more often, paying for his drinks less - they’re always on the tab of the note-leaver, after all - and gradually begins to rack up a significant list of clues:

Clue Number One: _The handwriting is always the same; it is always the same person._

Clue Number Two: _They must have a good job to be able to afford it._

Clue Number Three: _The notes are always on receipts; they must be a regular._

That’s as far as he gets before the note-leaver makes their presence extremely obvious.

(As much as he loves mysteries, Jay’s Nancy Drew-ing is not really up to scratch.)

This time the note reads, _“this one’s on the house,”_ and the solution to the mystery dawns on him.

Jay is frankly embarrassed he didn’t work it out before now. The whole time he’d been looking for another customer when the answer had been so _obvious._

“Not so good at cracking codes, are you?” the bartender drawls as he leans on the counter opposite Jay. His face and form are familiar ones to Jay: slightly shorter than him, sturdily built, a distinctive pair of sideburns, and a perpetually scowling face. Only this time, the last trait is strangely absent.

“I, uh, appreciate it,” Jay stammers. He’s not used to being on the receiving end of someone else’s advances. The feeling is funny and foreign and he might possibly maybe like it. “The notes.”

“Intent’s no good if you don’t follow up on it,” the bartender replies, and slides another note beneath Jay’s coaster. When he leaves to deal with an unruly man at the door, Jay peeks at it.

Apparently the bartender has given up on subtlety. There aren’t any words scrawled on the receipt he’s left for Jay.

Just a phone number.


	7. freezing outside; brian and tim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the prompt: **Tim and Brian, clothes sharing.**
> 
> my notes at time of writing: **i think i’ve written this scenario before but this relationship is one of my favorites to capture; thank you for the prompt!**

_i think i’ve written this scenario before but this relationship is one of my favorites to capture; thank you for the prompt!_

Tim’s ended up on Brian’s doorstep late at night more than once; it seems that Brian’s apartment is the only place where he feels safe. This time is no different, save for the fact that this time it happens to be _raining._

Brian doesn’t even blink when he opens the door to find Tim standing there, shivering and soaked with his floppy hair plastered to his head. He doesn’t say anything, just offers a little apologetic shrug and stares at his feet. Brian simply steps back and opens the door wider to allow him in. He obediently shuffles past, trailing rainwater and a general morose air.

(The latter is nothing unusual, but Tim is shivering so _hard_ and Brian has class at eight tomorrow, but he’s your friend and it isn’t even a small question of whether or not you’ll take care of him.)

For a horrible, empty minute the two stand in the middle of Brian’s cluttered-up apartment. Brian shoves his hands in his pockets and Tim drips and blinks and doesn’t look up from his feet.

Brian coughs, rubs one hand around the back of his neck. “Coffee?”

One of Tim’s shoulders jerk in a not-shrug. Brian interprets that as “yes” - so rarely does Tim make his opinions explicit - and goes to put on a fresh pot. Tim follows him into the kitchen, now mirroring Brian’s hands-in-pockets slouch.

It takes a few minutes of rummaging and some creative navigation, but eventually Brian locates an old jar of instant coffee. He tips it into the used filter and is able to focus on the task for a whole minute and a half before he realizes he can hear Tim’s teeth chattering.

“Freezing outside, huh?” Brian keeps his voice carefully casual. Their one-sided conversations are nothing unusual. Whatever the reason for these nighttime visits, he knows Tim would really rather he not ask at all.

So he doesn’t.

Tim twitches a little at the question. Brian makes a mental note not to phrase anything else as a question. Tim doesn’t like questions. He learned that pretty much immediately upon meeting the man.

“’M fine,” he mumbles.

Brian frowns at him for a hard second. Then he disappears into his bedroom.

Tim just stands and drips. And shivers.

Brian returns with a neat stack of clothes, pushes them gently into Tim’s arms, and returns to heating the coffee pot.

Tim doesn’t move. He holds the clothes awkwardly in his hands, staring at them in affronted confusion.

“You’re freezing, man. I can hear you shivering.”

Tim might be even more subdued and laconic than usual, but he’s still cognizant enough to identify Brian’s comment for what it really is - a gentle, casual reminder that he’s in the company of a friend who kind of cares a lot about him. Tim finally nods shakily and stumps off down the hall.

“Shower’s the first door at the right,” Brian calls. He listens for the telltale hiss of water to assure him that Tim had taken up his advice. A smile pulls at one corner of his mouth when he hears it.

Ten minutes later, Tim re-enters the kitchen with dry, warm clothes and a significantly less glum look to him. Brian slides one of the steaming mugs of coffee across the table.

“All right?” he asks. Tim’s second nod is much less hesitant than before.

“Thanks,” he mutters. His eyes flick back to the floor as he says it, but the grateful note in his tone still lingers.

For Brian, that’s enough.


	8. non-life; tim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> my notes at time of writing:
> 
> I wrote a sad thing and didn't proofread it cheers
> 
>  
> 
> **tw for alcoholism, suicide ideation, mention of fire**

_You hold the world’s shortest funeral at the ratty patch of ground behind the parking lot of your new apartment complex, two months after, well, everything._

The funeral constitutes you placing two small stones on the ground and downing a sixth of the bottle of whatever cheap alcohol you had on hand, then privately reciting some slew of tangled-up words in your head without even bothering to say them aloud. You thank the dead. Or curse them or hate them or whatever it is. You can't particularly tell. The eulogies are short, dreadfully mangled by the buzz and bubble of intoxication, nothing more than unelegant clips of old tired phrases everyone uses to honor the deceased. The whole thing is an attempt to be deeply philosophical and meaningful, and it fails horribly.

You empty the rest of the bottle on the ground in front of the stones - they’re all the graves you can afford for the two most important people in your life, as you’ve never been able to find the bodies - and return to your apartment. Your unburned, charmingly cluttered, empty apartment.

Drinking yourself into a stupor sounds incredibly tempting but you remember how you stupidly emptied your entire alcohol reserves on the thankless ground outside and are forced to nix the idea.

(In hindsight, you don’t know why you did that. It’s not like the dead or the parking lot will care much for intoxication.)

(Maybe it was supposed to be symbolic. You’ve seen people do it a lot in movies and things.)

If you had photos of either of them this would probably be the time where you’d take them out and stare at them and brood around and it would all be appropriately dramatic, but you don’t have anything of theirs to hold onto. Everything you had burned in the house fire three months ago (“No, officer, I don’t know how it happened. No, officer, I don’t know anyone who would want to hurt me. Lighter fluid, officer? I didn’t keep lighter fluid, officer.”), save the clothes on your back, the pills you took with you, and the camera.

You threw out the camera as soon as it was all over and you haven’t needed the pills since. Your smoke-stained clothes were discarded, your car sold to make way for a new living space, and you never looked back at any of it. If you still had the battered old camera maybe you’d hold onto that. It had been one of the most important things in both of their lives, after all. Cameras. Recordings. Seeing things.

You’re a selfish bastard.

(You would drink to that if you only could.)

(Alex would agree, but you aren’t holding him any funerals. He hasn’t earned that from you. Your memories of him are vague and scattered before he came after you and picked Jay off, shot him cold and easy without breaking a sweat, so after he burned your house down you returned the favor and made sure he was still inside when it went up.)

The thing of it is that you never _acknowledged_ it while they were alive. You never told anyone how it went, how there was a Brian-shaped hole in yourself and you went to so many lengths to fill it again. You even tried to fill it with the awkward, endlessly inquisitive, fumbling Jay, who was not even a little like the happily confident person who’d never asked a question if it made you uncomfortable or breached into your private life in any way.

You tried dispelling Brian’s acute, painful absence with the presence of a stupid, curious man with a stupid, curious camera, and you’re the only one who walked away alive from it.

Selfish bastard. You're the one who least deserves this life, so of course you’re the one who gets to keep living it. You can’t tell if you pity Jay and Brian or envy them for finding the peace you’ve never been able to, despite your best efforts.

(You’re not even good at _that.)_

_Selfish, selfish, selfish._

But you don’t do anything about it. You don’t do anything at all besides salute Jay and Brian’s long and illustrious careers of being shifty, shady sorts of persons with cameras in tow. You bid them goodbye with a meaningless spatter of alcohol over two poor substitutes for gravestones, then return to your non-life.


	9. this got 140 notes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this got 140 notes.

_in memory of Jay,_ Tim tells himself as he straps on the chest-camera

 _in memory of Jay,_ he thinks as he enters the place where his friend disappeared

 _in memory of Jay,_ he hisses savagely as he tears after the hooded man

 _in memory of Jay,_ he roars as he dashes the proffered mask aside with an angry swipe of his arm

 _in memory of Jay,_ he howls when the Thing takes him

_in mem o r y -_

and then he sees him, and his heart plummets


	10. someone; tim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> another unprompted ficlet, featuring tim wright and the infinite sadness.

_Be an astronaut._

_Be a firefighter._

_Be a teacher._

**_Do_ ** _something with your life._

The words follow Tim through his brief stints in public elementary schools, even while he's in and out of hospitals. The phrases still hang in his brain, in vague clumps of horrible sameness, so that he can no longer tell who said what and why or how. He just knows the words were _said_ at some point, and his silent rebuttal to each of them was that it was all fine and good for other people to be astronauts and archeologists and fighter pilots, but those sorts of things were just never in his future.

Hit middle school. Same questions, same dull despair. The only difference is how now someone's ratcheted up the hormones, and there are even more obnoxiously loud, nosy minds all bumping up against his own too-crowded one.

_Do something you enjoy doing._

What does Tim enjoy doing?

_Sleeping. Eating. Waking up where I fell asleep last._

_Not having seizures._

Not that he's good at any of those things.

_Get a job._

_Get a life._

_Get **better.**_

But he's not a light switch and he can't force himself better out of pure strength of will, contrary to the belief of his mother. His mother who acts like it's somehow his fault that he still can't sleep right and has to change his medication every few weeks and still has... _violent episodes._

Hit high school. More hormones, more loud clanging words drilled into his brain. More ridicule. More disappointed looks from his mother when she casts an initially hopeful gaze over his report card.

_What did she expect?_

Tim's not smart.

Tim's not brave.

Tim's not any of the things that look good on a resume, or would score him an interview, or earn him a volunteer job at the homeless shelter, because who would want that Odd Kid Who Sits Alone and Takes Pills to work for them?

Graduation, then. Somehow. Miraculously. And he's out and then in again, bound for the local college.

(Under the insistence of his mother.)

(Who _makes it quite clear_ that he must _Do Something_ with his life or he is an abject failure.)

Do what?

_Do something you know you can do for the rest of your life._

What's something he wouldn't mind doing? He wouldn't mind not going to overly frequent doctor's appointments. But that's a _not,_ not a _do._ And Tim just can't think of anything.

_Well, what are you good at?_

Good at?

Tim isn't good at anything. Or, wait, no: he's good at taking pills on time. He's good at filling out medical paperwork. He's good calming himself down when his hands shake and the unpleasant heat crawls behind his eyelids.

Maybe he should be a nurse.

Except Tim can no longer stand the sight of a stark white hospital wall. He hasn't been able to since he was eight.

_Be a policeman._

_Be an engineer._

_Be **someone.**_

But Tim  _isn't._ His identity is an old prescription and empty pill bottles and uncontrollable shaking and the horrid pale mask that he pretends isn't buried in the back of his closet.

And how does he make a "someone" out of that?


	11. jam love stories in 6 words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this got 127 notes.

He loved him when he lived.

Together until they lost each other.

They loved, they lied, he died.

They ran together; he lost him.

Alone but together, until the end.

One day Tim couldn’t save him.

Held together by lies; not anymore.

Don’t leave me, Jay. Not again.

He forgave, and was not forgotten.

How did I ever trust you?

No. I don’t believe you anymore.


	12. epilogue; alex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's over and done, and everyone is dead.
> 
> Everyone but Alex.

It's over and done, and everyone is dead.

Everyone but Alex.

He faces his tall master, curiosity spiking his dark calm and silently asks it what happens next.

His eyes fly wide open in shock when his question is met with a cold indifference, a prelude to the explosion of pain in the back of his skull. Alex falls to his knees and fuck, he's bleeding, out of his eyes and nose and mouth and _everything_ and it _hurts._

He looks up at it, the thing that's guided him and shaped him and led him

(used him)

and pleads.

"But I thought you needed me."

It does not answer.

"You told me you needed me!"

The blood keeps spilling, _god_ it hurts, but still it is silent. Alex falls to his knees, gun held limp and useless in one hand. He looks at the Operator much like a child would look at an angry parent, with sad eyes, wondering what it was he'd done wrong.

"I promise I'll do better," he whispers, tears and blood mingling on his face in equal measure. "Please. Just tell me what I did wrong."

He begs for the one thing in the world that can still bear to look at him to save him, and it only watches, apathetic. It tilts its head, curious, and Alex knows what's coming.

"Don't," he whispers, voice high and splintering, fragile as glass, as the frail bones in his body. _"Please._ You said - "

But it doesn't matter what it said, because it only considers him for a split second before it lazily strikes at him, at the core of his mind and _shatters_ it, and Alex screams and falls and moves no more.

Some pawns are sacrificed.

Some expire.


	13. just a shower; jay and tim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the prompt: **One of the Marble Hornets guys not wanting to shower when a faceless monster might appear at any moment**
> 
> the response: **set in the time window between Entry #67.5 and #72.**

“The room’s clear, Jay.”

“I know that.”

“So…?” Tim looks at Jay expectantly. “You said something about showering?” His mouth twists into a rare playful half-smile. “You could certainly do with one.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Jay nods, trying not to show how nervous he is. “Um. Yeah. I just. Well.”

Tim raises an eyebrow.

“Spit it out.”

“What if… _it_ shows up?”

Tim stares at him for a moment, then raises a hand to rub over his mouth.

"Stop laughing.”

“I’m not.”

“You’re trying not to!”

“Sorry, it’s just… _that’s_ what you’re worried about?”

"Don’t say it’s stupid!”

“I wasn’t going to.” Tim shakes his head and opens the bathroom door wide, pokes his head in. “There’s nothing here. All clear,” he calls out.

“You say that _now,”_ mutters Jay, and Tim stops being amused.

"Look, Jay,” he says semi-sternly, crossing his arms. “I know that this kind of thing, knowing it’s out there all the time, well…I know how it feels. But you can’t let it have hold over you like this. You’re just giving it more power.”

“I-I’m _not - “_

"I know you’re not _meaning_ to, dumbass, that’s the _point._ But until you decide to stop being afraid of it showing up all the time, this…situation we’re in, it’s not going to get better.”

"Are _you_ afraid of it showing up sometimes?” Jay whispers curiously.

"All the time,” growls Tim. “I’m a work in progress, you know that. But I’ve stopped acting scared that it’ll show up. And maybe someday I’ll start believing myself.”

Jay stares at the ground for a minute and mumbles something that sounds oddly like _“hypocrite”_ before fleeing into the bathroom and slamming the door behind him.

Tim rubs at his forehead with one hand. This endeavor was going to be a lot of work, he knew that going in. Jay had already seen him at his weakest; what good would it do trying to convince the other man of Tim’s strength?

_the strength Tim knows is absent. in the end he really is just a scared little lost boy, howling at the monsters to go away._

And if inconsequential things like _showers_ are apparently going to be a struggle, what does that say about what will happen when they _do_ face this thing for real?

Well, Tim tries not to think about that.


End file.
